As an IBM Cloud Architect for the past 6 years I have focused on the development, delivery and the maturity of cloud computing implementation with clients, partners and service providers. Recently the focus of “Hybrid” cloud services and implementations has seen a sharp rise as a strategic initiative for many clients.

By the industry definition, hybrid cloud provides services extending your data center to off premise private and public cloud. Hybrid cloud should leverage your investment in a common infrastructure model, operational management, user experience and skills. Hybrid cloud allows you to deploy and run your applications onsite, offsite, or in both combination. Likewise, hybrid cloud model that you adopt should ensure your cloud users have no need to rewrite applications or change APIs and have consistent user experience across deployment environments on-premise and off-premise.

Taking a closer look at off-premise cloud models, many enterprises concerned with control points, security and isolation consider using a dedicated private cloud tied into their on-premise data center. This environment provides single-tenant, isolated compute resources, and administration control. This can be combined with additional managed services provided through a cloud service provider or self-managed directly by the enterprise tenant. A dedicated private cloud can be ideal for DevOps and production workloads. Another common model is a virtual private cloud, which is based on multi-tenant model with logical isolation. This model addresses lower cost of entry, smaller scalable footprints and targets variable workloads, mobile and web apps. The infrastructure is often managed by a cloud provider and on ramping is very turnkey. By looking at your business workload objectives you can choose the right model or combination that works best for your needs.

IBM is a key player in the dynamic hybrid cloud space with our technologies and service offering for on-premise and off-premise clouds. IBM’s Software Defined Environment (SDE) framework and technologies provide a core set of infrastructure services for the enablement of an application driven hybrid cloud. SDE provides the mechanism for automation and orchestration for hybrid cloud infrastructure services, interconnecting the enterprise data center with cloud services across on-premise and off-premise boundaries.

The software defined hybrid cloud utilizes cloud IaaS and SDE capabilities to deliver programmatic and responsive infrastructure services. The SDE hybrid cloud helps businesses focus on capex and opex reduction while growing their business through on premise and off premise cloud interactions leveraging their IT investment and accessing new cloud cost models.

A common hybrid cloud usage scenario that many enterprises are embracing is around the delivery of system of record enterprise applications services connected to cloud-based apps, services and infrastructure. A SDE hybrid cloud enables the combination of “born on cloud“ applications and services and edge of network services securely integrated with back-end data, customer information and in-store inventory.

OpenStack, an open source cloud computing platform for public and private clouds provides an IaaS platform mechanism for cloud providers and enterprises to tie into hybrid services and implementations for on premise data center and off premise OpenStack based clouds.
An implementation of hybrid cloud using OpenStack provides a consistent infrastructure model with variety of choices for hypervisors, compute servers, storage types and network devices. OpenStack based cloud implementations provide an IaaS control plane and an infrastructure resource orchestration engine to deliver a workload policy driven hybrid environment. OpenStack also provides infrastructure automation and policy driven orchestration using OpenStacks HEAT engine combined with use of Heat templates for infrastructure pattern based deployments to simplify the developing and deploying in the hybrid cloud. IBM implementation and delivery of OpenStack provides additional enterprise capability including advanced resource scheduling and enterprise platform connectivity for Power Systems and zVM.

The SDE enabled hybrid cloud provides set of foundational services with a set of common APIs that simplify and abstract the back end implementation, allowing enterprises and cloud service providers to provide core cloud services for compute, storage, and networking.

Storage as a services for different storage types (Block, File and Object) - provides storage data plane across multi storage types, supports compute and direct access to storage services for File and Object based applications

SDE enabled hybrid cloud focuses on the needs of IT admin and DevOps users by providing consistent APIs for core services, IaaS automation and orchestration.

Coming up next…..In my ongoing hybrid cloud blog series, we will take a closer look at hybrid IaaS services and case study examples that will help you develop your hybrid cloud strategy. Stay tuned and join the conversation with me @riz_amanuddin or @IBMSDE on Twitter.

SDE combines OpenStack-based Software Defined Infrastructure (SDI) with application patterns to repeatably and reliably create the application environments for each stage of the delivery pipeline.

Deployment automation stream-lines deployment of applications into development, test and production environments via automation and elimination of manual tasks.

This SDE enabled approach to application delivery is illustrated in the figure reproduced here.

Deployment automation and application lifecycle
Deployment automation is central to enabling IT organizations to accelerate delivery by the elimination of manual tasks. As shown above, it automates environment creation via the SDE layer and perform application deployment, along with component tracking and versioning.

These tools also manage the configuration of each SDE environment, database and application component, ensuring repeatable and consistent delivery. This is an end-to-end solution from test environments, through to production. The approach tests the deployment and configuration process as much as the application code itself, eliminating configuration errors that would impact service availability.

At the heart of the IBM solution, UrbanCode Deploy manages the stages of the delivery pipeline, automating the environment builds, component deployment and configuration for each stage.

Reduced life time maintenance effort
Long-term application maintenance and remediation is a challenge in most of the organizations. Using manual deployment processes, the time and effort required to deploy new versions and update middleware and infrastructure is herculean. My experience is that due to the effort and cost, it just does not happen and deployed applications quickly slip into being part of the maintenance backlog.

Automation of deployment processes, while reducing delivery time for new applications, also provides a route to reduce the costs and effort involved in maintaining existing services. Patches, middleware and infrastructure changes can be deployed through the delivery pipeline, rapidly tested and released to production with confidence and reduced effort.

Software Defined Environments
In an SDE, virtualized IT infrastructure resources are managed programmatically through application programming interfaces (APIs). Applications define their infrastructure requirements, configuration and Service Level expectations. The developer, the people deploying the service and the service provider are all taken into account.

OpenStack
The OpenStack infrastructure as a service (IaaS) platform, abstracts IT resources as resource pools, managed by APIs. This abstraction makes it easier to program the configuration of IT infrastructure and avoids lock in to proprietary vendor APIs.

Application patterns
Sitting above this infrastructure API layer, application patterns provide solid and proven component building blocks, from which complex environments can be built. With patterns, multi-tier applications and infrastructure environments can be rapidly and repeatedly deployed time and time again without error, increasing service stability and reducing failures due to misconfiguration. This technique of full stack deployment enables rigorous testing to be performed in production-like environments early in the test cycle. The approach improves quality and reduces test and remediation costs later in the delivery cycle.

As illustrated in the figure, at each stage of the delivery pipeline, IBM UrbanCode Deploy programmatically directs the SDE to create a tailored environment based on the specified application pattern. On top of this UrbanCode Deploy provides final deployment of the application code and any required configuration.

Private, public and hybrid solutions
Delivery automation and pattern technology is supported across IBM’s private and public cloud portfolio. This provides a choice of on-premises SDE deployment options, off-premises deployment on IBM SoftLayer public cloud and hybrid configurations. The solutions include:

IBM PureApplication System (on premise) is for users looking for an all-in-one integrated appliance that can be delivered rapidly, embodying both SDE and patterns

IBM PureApplication Service on SoftLayer (off premise) is a public cloud-hosted implementation of PureApplication System, providing commonality and portability of patterns with on-premises implementations

Managing both pets and cattle, as stated in my previous post is a challenge for IT. This multi-platform approach to OpenStack provides agility and commodity scale out management for systems of engagement and the transactional integrity of enterprise systems for systems of record.

Accelerating social and mobile deployment
In these two posts, I have sketched out how IBM is addressing one of the major challenges faced by IT today: that of meeting user expectations for agile delivery while addressing the cost challenges of managing applications and infrastructure through their life cycle.

In future posts I will look at how IBM is implementing OpenStack, hybrid cloud and how application patterns are used with deployment automation in more depth.

How are you handling the challenge of delivering social and mobile? Are you adopting deployment automation and cloud? I look forward to hearing your thoughts. Leave a comment below or connect with me on Twitter @SteveStrutt or follow @IBMSDE for more updates.

Today, organizations likely face the same challenges as many of our large complex accounts. Specifically, they would like to be in a position to anticipate market changes and shifts in customer sentiments or preferences while continuing to not only outpace the competition, but also disruptions in their space.

Companies employ strategies to deliver business value by leveraging the following technologies to engage customers:

Big data – including NoSQL, which is sometimes referred to as not just SQL

Analytics

Traditional sources

The goal is to access applications and data from anywhere, globally. No matter the size of the enterprise, companies want to be nimble (if not the most nimble, at least nimble enough to be able to quickly respond to global business trends as they develop).

To do this, organizations need to tap into vast amounts of both structured and unstructured data to provide a competitive edge. The ability to instantly access information at the right time to make effective decisions means that organizations need to be able to manage larger volumes and greater variety of data at a velocity that allows them to stay ahead of trends. The goal is to move beyond intuition and instinct to gather and act upon information of all types (volume and variety), as well as to gather information that allows us to opportunistically adjust the course and speed of business (velocity).

Today we have new methods of IT service delivery, such as cloud. This simplifies how businesses can act in rapidly changing markets by enabling the quick deployment of services at required levels of services. It also provides access to applications and data anywhere through any device, while providing cost-effective scalability.

Likewise, big data and analytics solutions provide our clients with tools to simplify vast amounts of data, yielding insights for rapid decision-making. Big data and analytics allow clients to deliver insights at the highest point of impact, create insights about customer preferences and use near real-time analysis to predict business outcomes.

Software Defined Environments (SDE) enables these solutions

So, what exactly does that mean? Software Defined Environments employ software patterns that better match the power of contemporary workloads with advanced optimized IT resources.

IBM is working to define the standard for a specific type of Software Defined Environment: private, on-premises cloud infrastructure on the state of the art IBM PureSystems family.

“PureApplication System represents a significant shift in how information technology (IT) environments are built and maintained, in as much as they combine hardware resources, such as compute nodes, network appliances, and storage, with software, including virtualization software, operating systems, middleware, and applications.” (Creating Composite Application Pattern Models for IBM PureApplication System, 2013)

PureApplication System supports private, on-premises cloud environments by offering a built-in platform as a service (PaaS) layer that enables IBM clients to deploy enterprise applications and the underlying middleware within minutes, using the PaaS layer to define topologies and application environments in the form of reusable patterns.

Patterns are abstract models of IT deployments that encapsulate leading practices for installation, configuration and management of middleware and applications. Patterns can be deployed into PureApplication System repeatedly, avoiding the need to provision these environments individually and manually. This allows customers to employ Software Defined Environments based on years of IBM data and best practices.

It is the implementation of these patterns that will allow your organization to dynamically allocate workloads and resources based on application characteristics, providing cost-effective scalability and the ability to opportunistically adjust the scope, course and speed of business.

What are your experiences with Software Defined Environments? Comment below or connect with me on Twitter @GeryMenegaz or follow @IBMSDE to continue the conversation.

IBM Edge2014 – The premier event for infrastructure innovation (May 19-23) is in full swing in Las Vegas. As we have already seen the excitement on day 1 and day 2 at Edge, yesterday (the third day of the event) was no exception. More than 4200 attendees from 1009 companies across 22 industries and 55 countries made it to the event to discover latest technologies and share best practices in infrastructure innovation. Let’s take a quick look at what all happened yesterday at Edge2014:

Technical Edge

More than 150 expert technical sessions and hands-on labs were held spanning 14 technical tracks including Software Defined Environments (SDE) and Storage. Attendees were able to get unparalleled technical education plus numerous opportunities to expand their professional network. With IBM’s latest announcements around SDE and storage, we got to see lot of excitements among our participants. Additionally, the Edge2014 Solution Center featured exhibits from more than 50 sponsors plus the IBM Infrastructure Matters Zone. Attendees got real-life experience to explore the products and personally interact with experts. No doubt, the solution center fetched huge traffic and excitement to learn more about IBM latest innovations.

Winning Edge

At the Winning Edge, IBM Systems & Technology Group (STG) Specialty Business Partners and IBM Sellers were invited and offered an exclusive and concise sales education opportunity. The event uncovered infrastructure opportunities within the hottest solution areas like cloud and analytics. The Winning Edge Awards were also presented during yesterday's session.

In addition to this, the Business Partner Forum for all IBM Business Partner attendees provided an opportunity to gain valuable insights, resources and contacts to help build their business. A half-day event reinforced the critical role of Business Partners in IBM’s STG & Channel strategy.

Social Media at Edge2014

Social Media is playing a key role during the activities at the IBM Edge2014 conference. In addition to interacting in real time at the conference, IBM is encouraging attendees to interact socially via social media like crowd chat and to share their conference experiences using the hashtag #IBMEdge. Yesterday was no exception as we got to see large conversations around Edge that together generated more than 55 million impressions worldwide. You can join the chat with hashtag #IBMEdge and continue the exciting conversation around IBM Edge!

What’s coming next?

Last two days to experience Edge2014. Today and on tomorrow (Thursday and Friday), we will see more than 180 sessions in expert technical sessions for all levels spanning 14 unique tracks. Taught by IBM distinguished engineers, leading product experts, clients and partners, each session will be focused on IT infrastructure innovations. Come join us and be a part of this incredible opportunity. You can build your customized agenda using the IBM TechU Attendee Tool.

IBM Edge2014 – The premier event for infrastructure innovation is making waves in Las Vegas. On Tuesday (the second day of the event), more than 4200 technology leaders and practitioners from all industries participated to sharpen their expertise, discover the latest technologies, and share best practices in infrastructure innovation. Here are the key highlights:

General Session Day 2: Creating an Agile Infrastructure

The second day of Edge2014 started off with the General Session: Creating an Agile Infrastructure. While General Session Day 1: “Infrastructure Innovation that Matters” discussed the what and why aspects of it, the General Session Day 2 focused on how IBM solutions can deliver on the promise of infrastructure’s value through the lens of cloud, analytics, mobile and social. The session was moderated by Stephen Leonard – General Manager, Sales IBM Systems & Technology Group (STG), and brought together top IBM client and executives like Chris O’Connor - Vice President, IBM Cloud & Smarter Infrastructure, Arvind Krishna – General Manager, Development and Manufacturing, IBM STG, Maria Winans, Vice President, IBM Social Business who delivered insights on infrastructure innovations.

The session explained how to simplify, accelerate and deliver IT in the era of cloud, big data, mobile and social. For instance, during the session Maria Winans -Vice President, IBM Social Business spoke about how IBM and other organizations are driving people-centric engagement for new profit channels. She also spoke about the importance of analytics, saying you can’t personalize customer experiences if you can’t do the required analytics.

The session also highlighted IBM innovations and differentiating capabilities and made several key IBM announcements. Be sure to check out theannouncements that were made at Edge yesterday - exciting new infrastructure enhancements based on open standards that enable shared access to trustworthy information, build analytics intelligence into transactions and are tuned for the cloud to help you deliver real-time information and insights. You can watch the replay of the full session here.

Solution Expo

The Infrastructure Matters zone in the solution expo has the whole IBM Systems and Storage family on display. We experienced huge visits and excitements at the expo. If you’re at Edge, be sure to stop by to get some hands on time with Software Defined Environments, System Storage, Power Systems and Pure Systems and talk to the experts. Join us and get some cool giveaways.

Entertainment

Along with great learning sessions at Edge2014, we had three great artists who helped our audiences to unwind. Probably the coolest part of the opening general session was listening to an eleven-year old prodigy guitarist named Brandon Niederauer who rocked the big stage. Sheryl Crow, an iconic singer / song writer and the winner of 9 Grammy awards, performed live at the EdgeRocks yesterday. We also had Tom Cotter at EdgeLOL who entertained the attendees by telling funny jokes. Interestingly, Tom who has taken the comedy scene by storm since finishing in 2nd place on “America’s Got Talent” in 2012 will also make us laugh today at EdgeLOL.

Social media and Livestream

With so much of excitement around, IBM Edge is among the top trends on Twitter with 52 million social impressions. Stop by the Edge Social Lounge at Edge for fun activities and tutorial sessions in getting started with social media. You can also share the excitement with us by joining @IBMEdge or @IBMSDE on Twitter.

If you can’t make it to Edge2014, you can watch the Livestream or the Cube live interviews and get a glimpse of the actions happening here. Stay tuned. More to come at Edge2014!

IBM Edge 2014 event kicked off yesterday May 19th 2014 in Las Vegas, bringing together more than 4200 technology leaders and practitioners from across the world to learn and discover the latest in infrastructure innovation. Let’s take a look at some of the exciting events that took place yesterday:

The Executive General Session Day 1 talked about the what and why aspects of Infrastructure Innovations. Hosted by Stephen Leonard - General Manager Sales, IBM Systems & Technology Group (STG), the session not only highlighted some of the top concerns being faced by businesses today in the era of cloud, big data, mobile and social but also explored why IT infrastructure is critical to business success. Leading IBM experts like Tom Rosamilia – Senior Vice President, IBM STG, Jamie Thomas – General Manager, IBM Storage & Software Defined Systems, Adalio Sanchez – General Manager, IBM System x and top IBM Clients & Business Partners joined the session and delivered insights. You can watch the full coverage here.

Today it’s going to be even interesting as in the General Session Day 2 (8.45 AM PT), we will explore how organizations can realize competitive advantage building their cloud, analytics, mobile and social initiatives on IBM infrastructure solutions. Don’t miss this unique opportunity!

Main Tent Sessions: EdgeTalks - Innovation That Impacts Our WorldA special session hosted by Surjit Chana, Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer, IBM STG, delivered a unique experience for audiences to think differently and act differently. The session featured speakers from TED Talks: Ron Finley, John Wilbanks and Peter Singer who inspired the audiences to think about big world issues like food supply, health & wellness and security.

During the session, Ron Finley - Renegade Gardner made his vision for a healthy and accessible food forest - a reality with a bold idea.

John Wilbanks - Chief Communications Officer at Sage Bionetworks, talked about cheap data (we call Big Data within IBM) and how the voluntary and informed sharing of information can truly transform medical research and healthcare. As big data brings amazing opportunities, there are always some risks that we need to consider. Peter Singer - Technology Expert and Best-selling Author, highlighted some of the top security concerns affecting today’s businesses. His findings indicated: every single second, nine malware viruses are created and 70% of business executives made cyber security decisions without the expertise needed. Peter was very clear on the issues and challenges that we see at the individual level, at the business level, and in governance. We also had Sridhar Iyengar, Vice President Intel Labs, Director Security and Privacy, who talked about security concerns more deeply. In his quotes: by 2020, 50 billion things will be connected to the internet. We can now imagine the security implications.

The objective of IBM Edge2014 is to address these and many more infrastructure concerns. In the last note, Surjit Chana encouraged the audiences to take advantage of this exciting platform and learn how to transform infrastructure by leveraging IBM technologies and solutions. You can watch the replay of this session here.

We have lots more exciting coming up! I would like to bring to your attention some of the upcoming events that you would not want to miss.Software Defined Environment (SDE) is among major attractions at Edge2014. You can be a part of the exclusive sessions that will discuss SDE in detail. For instance:

I also invite you to visit the Software Defined Environments booth in the infrastructure matters zone. We have showcased some of the exciting products for you to take real-life experience and network with experts. Do not forget to drop by!

If you didn’t make it to Edge2014, you can still be a part of the event by watching the Livestream. For more updates, follow @IBMSDE on Twitter.

Today at IBM Edge 2014 - The premier event for infrastructure innovation, IBM Systems & Technology Group’s Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer, Surjit Chana, will host a special session called Edge Talks: Innovation that Impacts our World. The session will talk about innovations and how great ideas can help organizations move ahead. During EdgeTalks (the opening session of the Executive Edge at Edge2014), our Vice President along with several eminent speakers from TED Talks® will discuss innovation that impacts our world and explore major global issues like food supply, health & wellness, and security. The session will also highlight thought provoking, bold solutions that resulted from daring to think differently and act differently.

The eminent speakers from TED Talks will be:

Ron Finley, the renegade gardener who transformed a Los Angeles food desert one urban garden at a time. (Twitter: @RonFinleyHQ)

John Wilbanks who will address the convergence of technologies that capture personal data and their uneasy connection with privacy laws and ethics. (Twitter: @Wilbanks)

Peter S. Singer, the author of “Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know.” (Twitter: @PeterWSinger)

I am sure you don’t want to miss this session! Join us today May 19th 2014 at 3 PM PT in the Venetian Ballroom (Level 2) and see how thinking big and daring to be bold with problem solving approaches can have wide reaching implications and results. Register now! You can also attend the session via Livestream. We encourage you to participate in the discussion and share your thoughts using the hashtag #IBMEdgeTalks. Do not forget to connect with Mr. Chana on Twitter @SurjitChana.

In the course of my field travels for IBM, I have heard Software Defined Storage referred to as “just marketing talk,” “a re-spin of old technology,” and “adding another layer of complexity to the cloud.”

In this short tech note, I will illustrate the key reasons why Software Defined Storage (SDS) is not only important for enterprise cloud infrastructures, but necessary for enabling:

The first layer is control plane that provides a central point of intergration as well as common northbound APIs like REST. This layer also provides orchestration and automation tasks to the underlying data storage as requested by the cloud infrastructure. This can be tasks such as automated provisioning, policy management, tiering and monitoring.

The second layer is the data plane. This is a very large bucket which provides different types of storage such as NAS, object, and block storage. Along with the different storage devices, features and functions such as data protection, replication, snapshots and storage networking are key components of this plane.

Software Defined Storage – Why do you need it?
Now that we have a quick overview of Software Definied Storage, let’s look at a practical example. From the perspective of storage management in vSphere, there are several “requesters” of storage management resources. Some examples:

vCenter Operations Manager

vCenter Storage Management Plug-ins

vCenter Orchestrator

vCloud Automation Center

These integration points can make thousand of repeatitive requests to the storage management console including inventory, configuration, status, health and performance. The effect can be slow response times, stale information, and poor user experience.

Software Defined Storage – IBM Storage Intergation Server
To continue to enable all the cloud features possible, IBM added to an already robust suite of products for software defined storage with the IBM Storage Integration Server – a no additional cost add on to your existing IBM storage. This server acts as a control plane between VMware and the underlying IBM Storage.
This control plane not only provides a simplified single point of integration with VMware for IBM storage, but can provide a much more effiencent reponse through intelligent caching of repeative “requesters.” In this example, we only take the example of VMware cloud infrastrucutre. Adding other cloud platforms only amplify the need for this control plane feature.

Software Defined Storage – Learn more
To learn more about the IBM Storage Integration Server and other exciting developments for Software Defined Storage, visit the IBM Edge 2014 – The premier event for infrastructure innovation, from May 19-23 at Venetian in Las Vegas. I would like to highlight some of the exciting sessions at Edge that will help you learn about Software Defined Storage in more depth:

IBM is one of the key members participating at the Cloud Computing East 2014 conference which is opening today at Hilton in Downtown Washington, DC. The 2-day event (May 15-16) will focus on the unique issues, opportunities and special considerations that apply to the two industry verticals of Healthcare and Government in the adoption of cloud computing solutions.

Healthcare remains one of the fastest growing verticals of the global economy. Deliver wide-ranging functionality, drive innovative processes, and do more with less are some of the prominent challenges being faced by this vertical. In order to accomplish these and compete globally, Healthcare is combining cloud technology and creativity in its business models. IBM is well positioned to help Healthcare build a connected, agile and transparent ecosystem.

At the Cloud Computing East 2014 conference, I along with few other IBM members will address some of the major concerns underpinning Healthcare and discuss how IBM’s proven capabilities like Cloud, Software Defined Environments and Watson can enable achieve greater efficiency and improved outcomes for this vertical. Join me in the session: Redefining Value and Success in Healthcare Cloud Enabled Transformation, tomorrow Friday May 16 from 8.50-9.30 AM Eastern Time in Track B of the Cloud Computing HEALTHCARE (hCloud). I enthusiastically invite you and look forward to hearing your thoughts during the session. If you have any questions, write to me at rrmenon@us.ibm.com. Follow @IBMSDE on Twitter for more updates!

Cloud, analytics, mobile and social are transforming the world and bringing opportunities to business. This is an incredible moment. But many organizations have not been able to harness the value of their investments in this space. We need a new IT model, designed for the new era.

It comes down to the fact that infrastructure matters. The right infrastructure helps deliver real-time insights so you can make better business decisions, faster. It delivers performance efficiently, optimizes IT resources and is easy to consume. It’s also scalable and secure, providing safe, shared access to all relevant information no matter where that information resides.

All of that sounds great. But, as I often hear clients ask, how do you make sure you’re choosing the right infrastructure for your business?

It doesn’t have to be hard. Coming up on May 19-23 at Edge2014 in Las Vegas, you can tap into IBM’s point of view on the right choices for your business – formed by what we’ve learned in over 20,000 client engagements globally, in every country, every market. Edge2014 is the premier event for infrastructure innovation, where leading worldwide industry experts will discuss why IT infrastructure matters and how organizations can realize competitive advantage building their cloud, analytics, mobile and social initiatives optimized by IBM infrastructure innovations. Over the course of the event, you can:

Gain insights into key cloud, analytics, mobile and social challenges, concerns and solutions

Understand why these are relevant today from economic, technology and business perspective

Hear real-world case studies from top IBM partners

Learn how to ensure security of your data and applications

Develop strategy to defend your business from internal and external threats

Meet experts to share your experience and establish new areas of collaboration

We’ll also focus on how IBM Smarter Storage and IBM Software Defined Storage solutions can optimize your big data economics. In fact, we recently held a signature event – Fast Data Forum – where senior executives from IBM, clients and influencers, gathered to talk about new data innovations transforming industries. Get an inside look at new innovations from IBM that will dramatically increase data insights and business performance by watching the replay.

Within these focus areas, there are three cornerstone events at Edge2014 that align to different interest areas:Executive and Client Speakers in Executive Edge (May 19 – 20)
This 2-day exclusive event for IT leaders and executives will showcase breakthrough innovations and technology announcements including client success stories, exciting presentations from IBM executives and industry thought leaders and will provide an opportunity to meet one-on-one with top executives.

Learn Strategies & Best Practices at Winning Edge (May 19 & 21)
Winning Edge at Edge2014 will offer an exclusive and concise sales education opportunity. An exclusive 2-part sales training event where IBM Systems & Technology Group (STG) Specialty Business Partner sellers will collaborate with IBM Client Sellers. The event will also feature real -world strategies, best practices and examples of how to win the competition with IBM’s ground-breaking cloud, analytics, mobile and social capabilities.

Come join us - we want to help you transform and make the most of this moment. Edge2014 event will also be available via Livestream. Register at ibm.com/edge and check out the #IBMEdge conversation on Twitter.

IBM's Strategy for Software Defined Network (SDN) is going to be one of the key areas to be covered at Edge 2014 – The premier event for infrastructure innovation. I invite you to join me to explore how we plan ahead with Software Defined Network and our key initiatives around SDN. At Edge 2014, from May 19-23 at the Venetian in Las Vegas, I am going to detail step-wise rollout plan that will fully capture the transformation in your network architecture without vendor lock-in. This unique opportunity will also help you realize the potential of OpenDaylight, an open-source based Network Virtualization framework that integrates with OpenStack, supporting hypervisors such as VMware, KVM, and others. This lecture will describe IBM's data center strategy to finally complete the virtualization framework and leverage the power of cloud using industry best practices designs and open software tools. Come join me to learn about the vital differentiation of our SDN solutions in this rapidly evolving space. Here are the complete session details:

Session Number

Session Name

Date & Time

Location

Speaker

sSV08

IBM's Strategy for Software Defined Network

Thursday, May 22th, 2014 - 1.45 pm–2.45 pm PT

Friday May 23rd, 2014 - 10.30 am-11.30 am PT

Lido 3104

Tom W Yin - Global Network Executive, IBM SDN Sales

I am sure you would not want to miss this out. Register and be a part of this exciting gathering. I look forward to your thoughts and answer your questions that are concerning your business. In the meantime, follow @IBMSDE or #IBMEdge conversation on Twitter. See you at Edge 2014!

Software Defined Networking (SDN) is an evolving architecture that is dynamic, manageable, cost-effective and adaptable, making it ideal for the high-bandwidth, dynamic nature of today's applications. Now that SDN has become an everyday speak for many IT professionals in a Software Defined Environment, what do we really mean when we talk about SDN? What are its implications and business opportunities?
IBM Edge 2014 – The premier event for infrastructure innovation, from May 19-23 at Venetian in Las Vegas, will address many concerns about SDN and discuss end-to-end SDN architecture through exclusive expert sessions, clients’ success stories, etc. I would like to highlight some of the sessions at Edge that will outline many aspects of SDN and how IBM SDN capabilities help customers in developing, deploying, managing and maintaining a simplified, responsive and highly adaptive infrastructure:

Building Scalable, Programmable Network Fabric with SDN
Software Defined Networking (SDN) promise administrators to dynamically program networking devices using APIs. IBM Software Defined Network for Virtual Environment (SDN VE) controller with related applications allows administrators to build large scale network fabric from a central controller while using open standards such as OpenFlow, OpenStack, and OpenDaylight. This session will explain the technology behind SDN VE, unravel the latest SDN buzz within the industry and describe maturity of the technology with a practical example of building an OpenFlow networking fabric using IBM SDN VE.

The Trilogy of the Virtualized Data Center with Network Virtualization
Discover the Holy Grail of data center virtualization and automation based on open standards and software. Realize the potential of OpenDaylight, an open-source based Network Virtualization framework that integrates with OpenStack, supporting hypervisors such as VMware, KVM, and others. This lecture will describe a data center strategy to finally complete the virtualization framework and leverage the power of cloud using industry best practices designs and open software tools.

You may find the complete details of the sessions below:

Session Number

Session Name

Date

Time

Location

Speaker(s)

cNS10

Building Scalable, Programmable Network Fabric with SDN

Tuesday, May 20th, 2014

12.30 pm–1.30 pm PT
4.30 pm-5.30 pm PT

Lido 3006

Tom W Yin - Global Network Executive, IBM SDN Sales

sSN15

The Trilogy of the Virtualized Data Center with Network Virtualization

Wednesday, May 21st, 2014

9 am–10 am PT

Lido 3104

Scott Strickland - IBM SDN Global Sales & Business Development

Join me at Edge 2014 to hear these exciting sessions. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and answer your questions during the session. Register today and be a part of this unique opportunity. To stay connected, follow #IBMEdge conversation or @IBMSDE on Twitter.

In that first post I observed it is estimated that 40 percent of all IT spending is now outside the IT department. If IT does not change, then there is a real potential they will go the way of the Dodo and become extinct.

So what is holding IT back from changing and delivering the agility, flexibility and lower costs that users are looking for?

My assertion is that one of the handicaps facing IT today is the “contract” of behaviors and expectations that have built up between IT and the business. It needs resetting, but what is this contract of expectations? Here are a few of my views.

Project-based funding

The near universal use of project-based funding for application delivery has a perverse effect on how IT invests and handles the whole life management of applications and business services.

As IT’s first focus is typically on delivery and operation, my observation is that the tools, procedures and culture are not in place to allow for change over the course of the life of an application and its supporting infrastructure.

Funding through life is limited, so application and infrastructure upgrades do not occur and require a major step change in cost and effort when for compliance or support reasons they have to be done.

Hardware investments are made up front and sit in the data center unused until they are required. In this model I do not see any incentive for the correct sizing of infrastructure. Quite frequently I see the opposite behavior with infrastructure over-specified to minimize future risk, leading to stranded capacity.

Ironically, the public cloud consumption model is helping the IT department in this respect. Business users are getting used to the idea of pay as you go (PAYG), with costs spread through operational life.

There are considerations related to whether a business prefers to spend OPEX or CAPEX. But if it’s killing IT, why carry on?

Adopting a private cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS) delivery model with chargeable pay as you go services can provide the basis on which an IT organization can release itself from the shackles of project-based funding.

The big change is not that charging becomes usage-based, but that the underlying contract and assumptions between the business and IT change. By its nature, private cloud is a shared infrastructure that IT owns and dictates including the maintenance and refresh cycle that is part of the new contract. Just like on the public cloud, users now have to factor in management of applications through their lifecycle as the private cloud service changes.

Standard builds for servers and applications or lack thereof

The second is that users have become used to getting what they ask for. This is not always in their best interest. What they ask for has to have limits.

For most of the history of IT, it has been necessary to highly engineer systems to extract the maximum performance out of the available infrastructure. As Moore’s Law shows, technology progression has ultimately delivered massive compute capacity at low cost and moved IT to a point where relatively few applications require highly optimized infrastructure.

The IBM view point is that “Infrastructure Matters.” There are many workloads, especially big data and analytics where optimized infrastructure makes a difference.

The 80-20 rule suggests that most requirements can be meet with a limited number of alternatives. Another way of looking at this is that infinite customization, implies infinite costs. T-shirt sizes fit most requirements and with standardization and automation, costs can be brought right down.

When the IT department was the only service provider and hardware performance constrained, offering choice and customization was necessary. But now that users have access to public cloud suppliers who have highly standardized, low-cost offerings, to not be offering the same seems curious. If change does not occur in IT, then I believe its future is as bleak as the Dodo’s.

Restricting choice and applying automation to standard application component builds reduces costs and increases agility. Standardizing OS images is valuable, though I believe it is only as multi-component application (deployment) patterns are adopted as the standardized building blocks for application delivery will the benefit of automation really be seen.

Standardization using application patterns is a topic I will discuss in later posts as I believe this is a key element in accelerating application delivery, along with DevOps. In the next post I will look at two more reasons.

Stay tuned for my next post where I will discuss more reasons why the IT & business contract needs resetting for cloud. Till then, do let me know your thoughts if you agree or disagree that the above statements are holding back IT? I would be interested to hear what you have to say. Share your thoughts with me on Twitter @SteveStrutt.

IBM Power Systems deliver advantages that are unique in the industry and provide accelerated innovation for cloud. Whether it’s private cloud, public cloud or a hybrid cloud solution, Power Systems offer a flexible, open, and powerful platform for cloud workloads. Here are five effective Power Systems’ advantages for the cloud:

Reliability and availability are critical for workloads delivered through the cloud. In Power Systems mid-range and high-end systems, we see mean time between failures in the range of 70 to 100 years. This equates to 99.997 percent availability. Power Systems also have features to help manage virtual machine availability and elasticity such as Live Partition Mobility and dynamic resource allocation. Moreover, with the latest announcement of POWER8 systems, Power Systems have upped the performance customers can get from scale-out servers built on POWER8 technology.

2) Leadership virtualization

Power Systems with PowerVM have one of the industry’s most resilient and flexible hypervisors, supporting virtual machines (VMs) running in as small as one-twentieth of a core or up to 256 cores. PowerVM provides extraordinary VM isolation. High density and high virtualization help lower total cost of ownership and simplify management with consolidated resources. Power is now available with PowerKVM, the open source hypervisor for a lighter weight management stack and common management tools.

3) Certified security

AIX and IBM i operating systems have established security records which are exceptional when compared to other operating systems in the industry, and this also decreases risk and the need for patching. Furthermore, IBM PowerSC helps enforce conformance to industry and legal requirements, and reduces the effort to track and report compliance for audits.

4) Growing ecosystem and strong economics

Power Systems recently announced a billion dollar investment for Linux which is quickly resulting in an expanding ecosystem of applications optimized to run on Linux on Power. We have announced the Power Developer Platform which will provide an environment that our Partner and ISVs can leverage to easily port their applications and solutions to Power. In addition to IBM development tools for Power such as Power Linux SDK, Image Composition and Construction Tool, IBM WorkLight SmartCloud Orchestrator and SmartCloud Application Services, there is also a growing number of open source development and automation tools available for Power cloud including Chef, Puppet, OpenStack Heat and Ubuntu JuJu.

And with the announcement of POWER8, the exceptional advantages of the newest Power platform are now available 1 and 2 socket offerings designed for scale-out environments and competitively priced against comparable x86 offerings and leveraging the simplified administration of Linux on Power. IBM also recently announced that SoftLayer is integrating Power Systems into their cloud infrastructure. You can check the announcement here for more information.

5) Open platform of choice

A number of industry leaders including IBM, Google, Melanox, NVIDIA and Tyan have come together to drive new levels of innovation on Power Systems through the OpenPOWER Foundation. With the collective leadership and vision of IBM and partners, we will deliver significant innovation to the marketplace and our clients. This innovation will come in the form of hardware systems, firmware, system management, development tools, accelerators, network interface adapters, fabrics and more.

With the new POWER8 platform, and the addition of two new 1 and 2 socket Linux based scale-out servers, Power is positioned to deliver performance and reliability advantages for next generation open applications and developer tools. There is a broad and growing population of open source applications, operating systems and tools available for Power,

And finally, Power Systems is committed to open management. With simplified and consistent management built on the open sourced OpenStack platform, we are creating a flexible and interoperable platform which will provide long term investment protection for our clients, a foundation for the emerging Software Defined Environments and seamless transitions between cloud delivery tools.

The choice you make in your cloud infrastructure can make a big difference in not just being able to easily and cost effectively deliver solutions today, but it matters as you look towards building a resilient and adaptable platform to carry your organization into the future. For more information and details, see the recorded presentation 5 Reasons to Choose an Open Platform for Cloud.

Join us today, April 28th for our Open Innovation to Put Data to Work webcast. You’ll hear the latest updates on how Power Systems is delivering superior cloud economics and updates on our solutions around Watson, SoftLayer and much more.

I believe I have given you a lot of information on how and why Power Systems is the ideal open platform for cloud. I invite your thoughts and comments on how Power Systems can help you to grow your business and be your platform of choice for cloud delivery of your solutions. Write to me at aspence@us.ibm.com or connect with me on Twitter @alisespence.

Among tech topics that generated most buzz at the recently concluded Red Hat Summit in San Francisco - cloud, software defined infrastructures and open source stood out. Leading experts in the industry shared valuable insights on the vast opportunity, business value, and competitive advantages of these technologies.

In one of the discussions, Scott Firth, Director - IBM Software Defined Environments (SDE), delivered insights on the many facets of cloud, software defined and open source including their respective value propositions, implications on IT infrastructure as well as IBM’s next move around these technologies. The discussion was led by SiliconANGLE’s John Furrier and Wikibon’s Stu Miniman inside theCUBE from the floor of Red Hat Summit 2014. Here are some of the key excerpts of the conversation:

♦ The discussion started with Scott’s comments on the IBM’s strategic decision to invest in Linux back in 1999 when it was still in its infancy stage and IBM’s outlook on open source technologies today♦ Scott (with IBM for more than 30 years) emphasized some highlights of the long-standing IBM-Red Hat alliance, starting with solutions for Linux applications running on thousands of Linux Virtual Machines on the mainframe, to performing data analytics on Power Systems and Intel-based systems.

♦ On the cloud and open source front, Scott suggested that open source will continue to evolve and that OpenStack is a great example of the community taking the open source move to the next level.

♦ According to him, cloud is a way to transform IT and IBM is using OpenStack as the core technology for its cloud offerings to provide a packaged self-contained product that can be used to manage cloud like infrastructures

♦ When asked about his views on SDE, Scott said, “In a software defined everything, there are two components; first, an application aware IT infrastructure – an infrastructure that understands what applications are going to run, and second; resource smart IT infrastructure – smart utilization of infrastructure resources”. From IBM’s perspective, IT is all about the applications/ workloads and resources and the SDE marries these two components, he added.

For deeper insights, I encourage you to watch the full video here. If you have any questions, you can connect with Scott on Twitter @srf512. For more updates, follow @IBMSDE.